


We Get Along Like a Haus on Fire

by wombaton



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: "Wingman" elements, Angst with a Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, background zimbits
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-27
Updated: 2016-06-27
Packaged: 2018-07-18 16:22:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7322299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wombaton/pseuds/wombaton
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They never fought before, not when they were "just friends," which Ransom thinks might be the problem.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We Get Along Like a Haus on Fire

**Author's Note:**

> I was tired of Ransom/Holster always being the background and ended up with 10k worth of words about that. For those of you familiar with Ngozi's other comic "Wingman" there are some background elements of that within this. 
> 
> Thanks to Rachel [Nonbinarycharliedalton ](http://nonbinarycharliedalton.tumblr.com)for proofing this/making sure my grammar was up to snuff. 
> 
> Find me on Tumblr @ [myrtlewilson ](http://myrtlewilson.tumblr.com)!!

To be fair, Ransom can’t even remember what it is they're fighting over. All he knows is that Holster’s big ass head is the last thing he wants to see right now.

That’s a lie. He knows every reason why he’s mad, but it’s easier for him to phrase it this way to Bitty who seems to be a little preoccupied with doing the dishes.

“You don’t understand, Bits,” he says, shoveling a spoonful of rice into his mouth from the Chinese takeout restaurant. “It’s like he’s going out of his way to be a fucking –,”

“You’re right, I don’t understand hon,” Bitty’s back is to him, stacking clean plates in the cabinet above the sink. “Explain it to me from the top.”

Ransom pauses to swallow and slather more sriracha over an eggroll before he takes a bite out of it. He purses his lips. Contemplates how he wants to phrase his problems – start from the top or the bottom? Or all the little aggravations that have been bothering him since they started fighting last week?

So he tells Bitty about how two Tuesdays ago, Holster grabbed the wrong binder – Ransom’s own microbiology red binder instead of Holster’s maroon colored business management practicum binder – an honest mistake if it wasn’t for the fact that Ransom had an open note exam in the course the same day. Sure he had studied, and he’s sure he did at least well enough to scrape by with an A-minus, but it’s the principle of the thing.

Then when he had come back, explained the situation to Holster, he didn’t even have the grace to look sorry – just muttered something about Ransom “putting away his shit better.” Holster had seemed in a mood after his class, and Ransom knew better than to push when he was in one of his funks, so he had tried to brush it aside and went to bed early.

A few days later, when his Brit Lit 8 a.m. rolled around, Ransom awoke to the sounds of birds chirping and a car alarm going off across the street. Rolling over to check his phone, his heart dropped into his stomach when he saw 10:17 a.m. in thin white letters across the top of his iPhone. Not only had he slept through his 8 a.m., but there’d be no way he’d make it to his 10:45 class at the other end of campus without foregoing a shower and eating breakfast.

His alarm always went off; an old analog monstrosity hooked into the wall and handed down to him from his mother’s own days in college. Yet when he looked down over the edge of the top bunk, peering at the brick-like clock no numbers showed. In fact, it wasn’t even plugged into the wall at all.

The squawking noise he made was somewhat undignified, but the solid thump of Holster jerking awake and hitting his head on the low hanging bar of the bunkbed made Ransom feel slightly better. It had only taken seconds then for the two to dissolve into arguing which ended with Holster spitting out a sorry and slamming the bedroom door behind him, towel in hand as he padded down the hall to take a shower.

From there it seemed all downhill. Holster eating the last bit of Ransom’s Frosted Flakes. Holster putting an empty tube of toothpaste back in the bathroom mirror without replacing it. Holster forgetting the coffee date/study session they had planned the week prior where the two were going to go over flashcards for the mandatory social science class requirement they both shared: psychology.

Bitty hummed along at all the right places, brows furrowing as Ransom unloaded more and more of what Holster was doing that was driving him over the edge.

Finally, Bitty held up a hand and said: “Have you tried telling him this?”

“What?”

“You seem to have a lot of pent up frustration, and it seems you’re not telling him you’re mad. You’re just yelling at him about the immediate things and expecting him to know you’re angry.”

“Well, fuck yeah I’m angry,” Ransom snorts. “And he should realize that unplugging someone’s alarm clock because you’re drunk and don’t realize there’s another outlet for your phone charger _open and available_ is common fucking sense. You don’t do shit like that.”

Bitty sighed, closing the cabinet. He moves back to the sink and methodically begins separating the dishes: utensils in a cup, off to the side; plates on plates, cups with cups, and miscellaneous cookware on the counter. He plugs up the sink with a stopper and squeezes in a squirt of orange dish soap. The concoction fills the kitchen with the scent of spinach – particularly from the spanakopita Bitty tried making a few days ago – and oranges. It’s not wholly unpleasant.

Ransom watches as Bitty rolls up his sleeves, then stops. He turns around and braces his hands on the lip of the sink.

“All I’m going to tell you is this – you two have been attached at the hip since, _lord_ , long before I came here,” he says. “And people who are with each other all the time, every day, you think you’d need a break once in awhile don’t you think? Otherwise y’all start getting mad at each other for the silliest things. ”

“So what are you saying?”

“Maybe y’all just need to take some time apart from each other?”

Ransom frowns.

“But Holster… he’s my best friend. Shit, he’s my boyfriend!”

“That doesn’t mean you can’t overspend time with him,” Bitty shrugs. “Hell, I love Jack. Love him more than anything. But that doesn’t mean we can’t get on each other’s nerves every so often.”

“Again: what are you saying?”

“Maybe… you two should take some time off?”

“Bruh, you don’t even sound sure about your own advice. That _you’re_ giving.”

Bitty scoffs and throws his hands into the air. “Look, you dummy, all I’m saying is. Well, I don’t mean to sound rude but don’t you have any other friends?” He pauses. “Besides any of us, of course.”

Ransom opens his mouth. Then closes it. Then opens it again and – nothing comes out.

“Not even people in your biology department?” Bitty goads. “Don’t y’all get your notes from someone if you miss a class or get sick?”

“I don’t miss class,” Ransom says with ease. “Well, except –,”

“Except for that day Holster made you miss class.”

“I mean I guess but –,”

The sound of the front door opening and slap-banging shut cuts Ransom off. After a moment, Lardo comes into the kitchen holding her boots by the laces in one hand, a binder tucked under her other arm, as she holds a Taco Bell paper bag with only her thumb and forefinger. Bitty comes to her aid just before the bag drops. She thanks him with a bump of her shoulder into his own.

“You guys been talking shit about me?” she says in lieu of a greeting.

“Yep.”

“Of course.”

“Great,” she laughs. “At least I can value you backstabbers for your honesty.”

Just as she begins to launch into a rant about something a guy said during critiques today in her sculpting class, Ransom pushes out his chair from the dining room table. Bitty looks at him quizzically but he waves him off saying: “I have a paper I have to finish for Cubit’s class next Friday and I haven’t started.”

Lardo nods sagely. “Mandatory language classes can be a real ass-kicker dude.”

“You know it.”

He tosses the take out container in the trash, pushes in his chair, and heads upstairs. Nobody needs to know his Spanish textbooks and rubric are still sitting on the steps in his backpack.

Ransom goes to bed with Bitty’s words echoing in his head.

_You think you’d need a break once in awhile, don’t you think?_

 

 

 

 

Holster comes to bed around 1:30. Ransom knows this because he’s been jumping back and forth between playing Draw Something with his cousin in Winnipeg and Crossy Road for the past four hours.

“Rans – Justin, babe are you awake?”

Ransom lies perfectly still and keeps his breathing even. Even though the volume is off and the brightness is set to the lowest level, he takes care to slide the phone face down under his pillow. He hears the bedframe rattle as Holster hoists his upper body over the railing.

Time stops for a second. Holster’s breath ghosts over the side of Ransom’s face that isn’t smashed into his pillow. Then, almost as if he imagined it, a feather light kiss is pressed to Ransom’s cheek. His breath smells faintly like beer.

Something flares up in Ransom, the hot, tight coils of jealousy.  _Don’t you guys have other friends?_ Apparently Holster does.

No. No that’s stupid. Who gets mad at friends having other friends? Shit, he’s starting to sound like a reality TV diva. This whole week has been a horrible mash of Ransom getting angry, cooling down, and then Holster setting him off again. To look for something to get angry about now would just be stupid.

He’s being over tired and irrational, Ransom reasons with himself. 

The bed dips again as Holster gets down, mumbling something under his breath. Ransom can’t pick up what he says or the tone it’s in. He’s curious. There’s not a lot they keep from each other. Then again, he can’t remember the last time he faked asleep in order to not talk to Holster. Something sour sits in his throat, a mixture of shame and anger.

Why can’t Holster just apologize for how stupid he’s been over the past few days? Ransom breaths deep and rolls over.

Maybe he’ll talk with Holster tomorrow about this whole thing.

 

 

 

 

Tomorrow turns out even worse than the day before. But unlike yesterday, it’s the result of something neither of them are directly responsible for.

Holster texted him over a half an hour ago asking to meet at coffee at Annie’s but Ransom hasn’t heard anything from him.

Just as he’s about to get up and throw out his cup, his phone buzzes in his pocket. He looks at and fights the urge to roll his eyes.

He doesn’t even get a full text response just an “omw.” Justin bites his lip. It’s Saturday so it’s not like there are classes to go to, but because he slept in the other night instead of doing Cubit’s paper, he really –

Holster comes flying into the coffee shop like a man possessed. His backwards New York baseball cap does nothing to hide his horribly disheveled hair, and his half buttoned flannel can’t hide a rather impressive brown and green stain on his white shirt underneath.

His eyes scan the crowd, scowl etched into his face, until he spots Ransom and his brow unfurrows.

“Oh my god, it was a fucking nightmare getting here man,” Holster says, slamming himself into the chair in front of Ransom. “I’m sorry I’m late.”

He at least has the decency to look somewhat ashamed, Ransom thinks.

“What happened to your shirt?”

Holster purses his lips, pulls his flannel a little tighter. “Nothing.”

“Bruh, you look like you got in a fist fight with Bob Ross.”

“Can we just drop it?”

“Sorry it’s just – well you’re like 40 minutes late and the only thing I get is a three letter text?”

“Shit, when did you become my mother?”

“I mean I hope I’m not, but I am your boyfriend,” Ransom fiddles with the rim of the cup, rolling up the lip before smoothing it back down again. “I mean, I _am_ your boyfriend, right?”

Holster looks up from his backpack, open on his lap. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Well nothing! I mean –,”

“No, what? You’ve been in a horrible mood since like Tuesday, bro.”

“You mean since you fucked me up on my open note exam?”

“Oh my _god_ are you gonna drop that? I said I was sorry! But you put your shit on top of my stuff and you _know_ I’m shit with telling colors apar– ,”

“OK but you didn’t even say you were sorry or anything?” Rim up, rim down, rim up. “You told me to put away my shit better.”

“Yes! Because who puts their stuff on top of someone else’s stuff and then gets mad when it gets mixed up?”

“But did you even look though?” Ransom fires back. “Because if you did – if I didn’t study –,”

“You _always_ study though, that’s the point. You were going to do fine on that exam anyways, babe.”

“Don’t babe me.”

“Oh my god.”

They sit in silence for a moment. Holster looks at the line to get coffee and wonders if it’s worth it to suffer though standing in mind numbing boredom while Ransom glares daggers at him from their usual table.

“Maybe Bitty was right,” Ransom mumbles at the same time Holster asks: “Do you want me to get you anything?”

“What?”

“Excuse me?”

They hold each other’s gaze, Ransom feeling more and more apprehensive by the second. He knows that look on Holster’s face, that grim set teeth on the edge of his lips right before he pukes.

So Ransom says quickly: “I’m not breaking up with you!”

Holster sighs though tight lips.

“What was Bitty right about?”

“Nothing.”

“No, it was important enough for you to bring up, so what is it?”

“OK so just,” Ransom props his chin on his fist. “When did we start dating?”

“Like a month and a half ago, why?”

“And how long of that time have we spent fighting?”

“Well… like half of it… but –,”

“Exactly! But when was the last time we fought before we started dating?”

Holster stops for a moment and thinks. Actually wracks his brain for the last time they’ve had even the smallest spat but he’s coming up short. There was that time when they – no. Or three weeks ago when they – well, technically they were dating at that point so. Well, there was a point during their freshman year when they had fought over the first string on D-Line, but they had made up soon after realizing they were both a shoe-in for the positions. Both of them.

Ransom’s face falls. “You can’t, can you?”

“Alright… so we’ve been fighting a lot,” Holster concedes. “But what’s your point?”

“Do you ever think it’s because we see _too much_ of each other?”

“No!”

“Adam, be serious.”

“I am,” he says. “I could never see too much of you, you’re the best part of my day. I swear to Jesus Christ.”

“That makes it a little harder to believe when you’re Jewish, babe.”

“Eh, we believe in Jesus. Kinda,” Holster waves a hand. “Semantics.”

He almost smiles. Almost. “Stop it,” he says instead. “I’m still upset with you.”

The way Holster looks at him, from across the table looking like a cross between a dirty raccoon who just fell into a dumpster behind a Mr. Pita and an overgrown child who raided their father’s wardrobe, it shouldn’t be endearing.  But there’s something about Holster that makes him pull it off, that makes Ransom want to take him home and cuddle the shit out of him.

Yet, he wonders if they do this, will they just fall back into the same type of song and dance where they flop between fighting and fine?

“Just tell me what I have to do to make it up to you,” Holster leans and catches Ransom’s hand before he can start nervous fiddling with the rim of the cup again. “I know you said you’re not breaking up with me but it really seems like it right now and I know I’ve fucked you over a lot in the past week but I promise I’ll do whatever it takes to make it up to you.”

Ransom twins their fingers together, squeezes.

“I just…,” he sucks in a breath. “Maybe we rushed into this. Like, what if we’re fucking hardcore with our friendship right now by doing this?”

“Doing what?”

“Being boyfriends.”

“Justin, please.” There’s an edge of desperation to Holster’s voice. “I swear to god dude, I’ll stop being such a dickhead. I’ve just been having a real shitty week and taking it out on you which is _totally_ my fault, and it’s shitty of me and I’m sorry OK, I’m sorry.”

Why did they have to do this in a coffee shop? Making a scene in public is so far from Ransom’s style, he almost feels embarrassed to be himself right now.

“And I’m sorry too,” he amends. “But how long is it going to be until we get into another pissing match like this? And how long is that going to last? We never fought on _anything_ when we were just friends.”

“Couples aren’t going to agree on everything all the time! That’s totally normal!”

People are staring now. There’s no way they’re not staring.

“Lower your voice,” Ransom hisses, dropping Holster’s hand. “And you know that’s not what I’m talking about. If you look at our relationship from a logical standpoint, almost half of it has been fighting.”

Holster cradles his head in his hands and lets out a shaky exhale. When he looks back up at Ransom, his eyes are glassy like he’s trying to hold back tears. The thickness of his glasses only serves to magnify how blue and watery his eyes look.

“So, what?”

Ransom sits back in his seat and sucks on the inside of his cheek.

“We’re putting ourselves in the metaphorical penalty box,” he says. “We’re not breaking up; we’re just taking a break. And if we can get through all of next week without fighting with one another, then we can figure out if this relationship is something we want to continue.”

Holster scoffs. Sniffs. Pushes back his chair and throws his backpack strap over one shoulder, and turns to leave but looks like he wants to say something first. He shakes his head instead and turns his hat around so the bill shades his eyes.

It’s in this moment Ransom wonders if he’s made a mistake. Sure, he’s been just shy of absolutely irate at Holster this week for doing some dumb things, but seeing his boyfriend this worked up after just putting their relationship on probation makes his stomach do something funny.

He would seem like a total cock though if he took it all back now.

“You don’t have to leave if you don’t want.”

Holster shakes his head. “I’m just gonna go to the library. I – I’ll see you later I guess.”

He doesn’t take the time to hear Ransom’s reply, just filters through the crowd of girls from Tri Sig who are coming in at the same time he’s leaving. When Holster’s gone, Ransom feels like all the air’s been sucked out with him.

It’s only a week, one week, with no fighting. Then they can go back to doing whatever this is.

I’ll be easy, he tells himself.

 

 

 

 

 

In the midst of trying to deal with his problems with Holster, Ransom completely forgot that the two of them are supposed to be planning their regular Saturday night party. While not needing the attention to detail that Kegsters typically do, someone’s still responsible for sketching out how much booze they need, who’s in charge of music detail, and where or how they’re getting food.

Plus, it sucks to plan it all out and only have the usual bunch of people show up. Well, not that it sucks to hang out with the hockey team – far from it – but to have meticulously lain plans fall through isn’t Ransom’s style.

As co-captain, it’s partially his job to make sure everything runs smoothly. It’s also partially Holster’s. But it’s difficult when Holster won’t even meet his eye as they go over the excel sheet Ransom printed off after he left the coffee shop.

So he asks: “Did you get the soda for the mixed shit?”

Holster hums.

“What kinds?”

“Coke and Pepsi,” he shrugs. “Wasn’t sure what people would prefer.”

“Bruh that’s like, the same drink.”

 “It’s totally not and your Big 8 drinkin’ Canadian ass knows it.”

Ransom laughs and Holster’s eyes visibly brighten. He looks like he’s going to say something, but reconsiders and frowns. Instead, Holster stands up and tells him he’s going to help Bitty wash out red Solo cups for Flong.

Which leaves Ransom, alone, to chart out how big he thinks this party is going to be. In the end, he crumples up the list and decides to use the money from the Sin Bin to buy a few twelve-packs of beer ranging from shitty Hamm’s to not-as-shitty Sam Adams.

By the time he gets back from making a Murder Run with Chowder, who had to wait in the car because the new cashier is a _total_ ass who cards everyone in the group if even one person is buying, Ransom almost forgets Holster’s pre-party weirdness. Almost.

Chowder wriggles out of the passenger seat with two armfuls of bags when he sees Farmer on the porch, drawing on the cement in chalk with Whiskey and Ollie.

“Thanks for buying for me brah,” Chowder says and, before Ransom can even respond, kicks the door shut.

The rearview mirror of his Buick Century jiggles a little. Ransom snorts. From what he’s heard, Chowder is whipped for this girl and a complete pussy monster too, if what he overheard from Dex and Nursey were true. A man after his own heart.

Ransom unpacks the rest of the alcohol from the car with one trip by enlisting the help of Whiskey, who runs inside and grabs Tango. Quite honestly, Ransom’s not sure if the two are friends or if Whiskey is just really good at worming his way past Tango’s otherwise chilly demeanor, but the tadpoles are never far away from each other. As captain, it warms Ransom’s heart in a weird, fatherly way.

He shakes his head as he watches the two go inside. Senior year is fucking with his head so hard. He needs to get bitch ass shitfaced, stat.

 

 

 

 

In the time it takes for everything to get put away, the beer to be properly chilled (“Only demons drink warm beer, Poindexter,” “Christ Nurse what’s your problem? You gonna tell my beer to chill out?”) and for Bitty to whip up a sizable plate of hors d’oeuvres, people have already started filtering into the Haus.

It’s more than they accounted for, honestly. While there is a BYOB policy in effect, Ransom knows that not every underclassman has the means or the money to get alcohol. So the Haus supplies what they can.

Ransom knows however that if he and Holster would have planned this better, they wouldn’t have run out of everything they bought before midnight. He’s feeling a little pissed. Not as pissed as he would usually be, however, because he definitely felt this coming and tucked away a 12-pack of Moosehead in the back of and Holster’s shared closet.

And speaking of Holster, he hasn’t seen a single white-blonde hair on that boy’s head since before Ransom left to get drinks earlier that day. While they wouldn’t be completely attached at the hip, the two of them would usually decide to play beer pong or Ride the Bus at some point during the night. So it wouldn’t be out of the ordinary for them to just exist in the same space. The same room.

But instead Ransom broods silently on the green couch, which has been covered in a throw blanket thanks to Bitty, who otherwise deemed it “not safe for human contact.”

He takes a sip from the bottle and savors the bitter aftertaste. He hears screaming in the other room, then a long deep beer belch. Farmer comes in with a plate full of pigs-in-a-blanket in one hand and something that’s pink and overwhelmingly strawberry smelling in the other.

She throws herself down next to him and tucks her feet under her thighs.

“Penny for your thoughts,” she asks, offering up the plate to him.

He laughs. “Thanks, but I don’t eat pork.”

“Ah. Vegetarian?”

“Muslim.”

She nods: “Oh okay, like Derek?”

“I mean, he’s a bit more devout than me but yeah.”

“Neat.”

They fall into a silence that’s just slightly above the level of ‘awkward.’ Ransom would define it as sitting with the girl you know your son is railing on the regular, but he’s not _actually_ Chowder’s dad so he really has no justifiable reason to feel this way. Maybe Bitty’s rubbing off on him.

Then Farmer says: “So where’s Adam?”

Ransom shrugs and takes another sip of his beer.

“Where’s Chowder?” he says instead of answering.

“Making Dex lose at beer pong,” she whips out her phone. “He’s so bad, holy shit. You think having to catch tiny little pucks all day would make his hand-eye coordination great but nope. He just launches the ball off the table every time.”

He laughs. Ransom’s seen Chowder play drinking games once or twice, but never really paid attention.

“Chowder blames it on the, and I quote, ‘shitty Asian drinking gene,’” Farmer does the air quotes and everything. Ransom remembers Lardo saying something similar, but in regards that she was thankful she didn’t get red faced and drunk off one beer.

Farmer polishes off the tiny meat pastries as Ransom focuses on whatever was left on TV before the party started. It looks like Wall-E. Bitty insists on leaving Disney movies on for their drunken guests as a means to make them calm down, citing something about how “no one can be mad when the Lion King is on, Justin.”

Ransom concedes. It’s pretty hard when these little robots are fucking adorable. Plus, if this method works on his kid cousins, he’s pretty sure it’s infallible on drunken college kids.

Farmer downs the rest of her mixed drink. “Wanna be my beer pong partner and make Chris cry?”

“How you plan to do that?”

“He’s sensitive,” she says in a way that definitely makes Ransom think she’s not just talking about Chow’s inclination to be emotional when he loses. “You game?”

“Hell yeah, girl.”

But by the time they make it over to the other room, it seems like some sort of mock fight has broken out between Dex and Chowder which has put the game on pause.

“HOW DO YOU KNOCK OVER HALF OF OUR CUPS, CHOW!”

Chowder splutters. “I DON’T KNOW! I’M SORRY! STOP YELLING!”

Normally, Ransom would find this absolutely hilarious, the frogs going at one another like they used to but without any real heat behind it but when he spies Holster leaning up against the wall it’s like all of his brain power is redirected straight to that spot.

Particularly that spot being occupied right under his boyfriend’s arm by another guy who’s very clearly leaning in too far to be considered friendly. To Holster’s credit, he doesn’t seem too engaged; just staring off into space with that glazed, drunk look in his eye he usually gets when he’s hit his limit. Yet there’s something about him standing next to this boy with a nice ass and deep, dark brown eyes that’s making his well-past-drunk mind angry.

Like fate, that’s when Holster’s eyes catch his. Ransom flushes. His drink is empty, and it’s as good an excuse as any to leave the room as fast as possible.

Somehow, he ends up in the back yard. There are a number of people out here in various little clumps, murmuring to themselves as the smell of cigarette and weed smoke permeates the air.  Most of them have congregated away from the back porch, for which he’s thankful. By field of choice, Ransom’s personally against smoking of any kind but for the first time in his life he almost wishes he had a joint or something other than an empty glass bottle to play with.

He plops his butt down on the wooden deck, feet dangling into the too tall grass. The blades tickle at his exposed ankles. They’ll have to cut it soon, maybe tomorrow. 

Lardo’s head keeps swimming in and out of his field of vision, but she seems to be busy entertaining a gaggle of girls with a story that involves a decent amount of voice changes and hand gesturing. Ransom pulls out his phone and checks the time. Just after midnight. Too early to leave your own party?

Just as he’s about to pocket the phone again, someone obstructs his back porch light. Ransom looks up. It’s Holster, swaying on his feet and looking rather drunk. He throws himself down next to Ransom rather forcefully and takes a second to steady himself.

If Ransom were 100% sober and in his completely right mind, he’d ask Holster if he’s okay. The alcohol rushing through his body however has other plans, which makes him say instead: “So where’s your friend?”

Holster looks at him with these big, cow eyes. “Right… next to me?” he says, drawing out each word.

“Ok,” Ransom scoffs.

Neither of them says anything and the beat of the song changes inside, rattling the window in the dirty white door behind them. Someone didn’t stop Bitty from getting to the iPhone hooked into the stereo and now Shakira’s “She Wolf” is blasting at a nearly deafening level.

Someone screams and the song changes again. Then a third time.

“You think someone would learn to pass-lock their phone,” Holster mumbles, then laughs.

The thing Ransom likes about drunk Holster is that he’s a lovable drunk. When they first met, he was scared that the nice white boy who towered over him would turn into every other type of white city boy he’d ever met – louder, meaner, and openly racist. Drunk Holster, however, turns into a cow. He likes to eat, to lie down on the grass outside, and to take naps.

The first time it happened, Ransom was almost certain Holster blacked out then passed out. Now Ransom realizes he’s just a very large and very blind teddy bear.

Holster pushes his face into Ransom’s shoulder.

“Are you still mad at me?” he mumbles. “Because I don’t like that.”

Ransom huffs and puts his lips to the bottle before realizing – oh yeah, empty. He pretends to drink anyways so he doesn’t have to say anything.

“You just need to relax,” Holster drawls.

This is the wrong thing to say.

Ransom snaps, “Don’t tell me to relax, Adam.”  He moves his shoulder so it dislodges Holster’s cheekbone from his shoulder. “I’m fine.”

“Really? You don’t seem ‘fine.’”

He can hear Holster’s air quotes.

“Yeah you know what, I’m not fine!” He says, turning to stare down Holster. “Not after I seen you with that dude in the other room. What’s that about?”

Ransom knows that’s not what happened. And sober Ransom would be throttling drunk Ransom for the shit that’s coming out of his mouth right now. But like an out of body experience, he can’t stop anything from spewing out.

Holster cocks his head, his eyes narrowing.  “You mean Mark? From my fucking class with Marsden? The one that I didn’t have notes for because you put your binder in my shit?”

“Oh, yeah sure I _purposefully_ put my binder in your shit the same day I had an open note exam.”

“God! What is with –,” Holster drunkenly claps a hand over his own mouth then rubs it all across his face. “No. No, no, no, no, no we’re not fighting. We said we wouldn’t fight.”

“Well maybe I feel like fighting, huh Holtzy, ever think of that?”

“But why?”

The tips of Ransom’s ears are burning, like they always do when he’s angry. He doesn’t have any real answer for Holster. Instead, he places the bottle of lager sideways on the deck and rolls it off the edge of the porch.

“We made a mistake dating,” Ransom says at last. “And now we fucked up whatever it is that we had as friends. Fucked it up real bad, Adam.”

Holster grits his teeth. “Stop saying that!”

“Then what do you want me to say, huh?” Ransom throws his hands in the air. “That spending the last almost month being angry as hell at each other is good? It’s ‘normal?’”

“Why do you wanna break up so badly, Just?” Holster reaches out and grabs him by the side of the head, but his inebriated aim is off so he ends up with one hand on the side of Ransom’s neck and the other in his hair. “You afraid you can’t jot down everything on a fucking Excel sheet? Can’t plot out how to get over shit when it all hits the fan, babe? Because that’s real life.”

Ransom reacts like a cat doused in water. Squawking, he grabs two fistfuls of Holster’s shirt and shoves him backwards onto his back. “Don’t _touch_ _me_!”

Holster’s head hits the deck with a hard thump. He doesn’t look winded, but his eyes look glassy as they gaze upwards at the starless sky. Then Ransom realizes half of the back yard is staring at them. Lardo included.

He stands up.

“I’m going to bed,” he tells Holster. “Go fuck yourself.”

Without as much as a glance back he fumble-steps his way back inside and slams the door. He pushes past Bitty, past Ollie, and trots up the stairs as nonchalantly as possible. After pulling off his pants and fighting with his socks, Ransom crawls up into his bunk.

After a moment of lying there, head smashed into the pillow, he presses his hands to his eyes. He’s not going to cry he tells himself. He’s going to bed.

So he does just that.

 

 

 

 

“Ransom!” Someone jiggles his bed. “Get up – _now_.”

His mouth tastes like he licked a 9-volt battery and chased the tingle with shots of straight Bacardi, which is a very realistic possibility and certainly not the weirdest thing he’s ever, theoretically, done. Ransom slaps at the hand on his sleepshirt collar. Then his cheek is stinging and he springs awake.

“I _know_ you didn’t just slap me,” He whirls his head around and snarls to – Holster? The fuck?

In the dim light of the moon, filtering in through the single attic window, he can’t quite make out Holster’s face but Ransom would recognize that body anywhere. More important, he’d recognize that frantic, rabbit scared look in his eyes. It’s the same look he gets when there’s a break away and both of them are powerless to stop it, or when Holster spots a bad hookup from across the quad that looks like they have a few choice words for him.

“Rans, the Haus is on fire,” Holster whispers. “We need to leave.”

The scenario is so absurd that, for a moment, he thinks Holster is joking and he tells him such. They’ve pushed each other to the brink of freak-outs before. Joking about a fire seems a little inappropriate, but it’s not something he’d put past Holster as a dumb prank to make Ransom run outside in the cold November air in just boxers.

If the Haus were on fire, then the smoke detectors would be going off. Then Ransom realizes the house itself is so old, almost on the verge of being condemned, that no one would take the time to inspect for something like that. They don’t even have smoke detectors.

Holster’s voice cracks when he shakes Ransom again saying: “We need to _go_!” and –

Ransom tosses off his covers, nearly kicking Holster in the face as he throws his feet over the side of the bunk bed. He didn’t remember crawling up to his own jumps bed during the middle of the night, but then again, Ransom did remember going to sleep either. Just being on his phone, then being here.

He jumps off.

“Where’s everyone else?” He asks, grabbing the first shirt off the ground he spots. “We can’t just get up and leave them.”

“We can’t get down, downstairs we –,”

“ _What!_ ”

Panic. Blind panic seizes at his stomach, heart, lungs, throat pouring out his mouth and he wants to dry heave but –

“Baby, please, we gotta think now, we can’t afford to lose it.”

“Chowder!” He gasps. “And Bits, and Lardo; we have to make sure –,”

Holster doesn’t let him finish, just pulls at his hand. “Come on then!”

Ransom snatches his phone from under his pillow, inadvertently ripping the charger out of the wall with it. Tossing it to the floor, the two thunder down the steps single file. The door at the landing is already haphazardly thrown open, and Holster strides down the hall slamming on doors with an open fist yelling: “Get up and get out of the Haus!”

At the far end of the hallway, near Bitty’s room, Ransom can already see plumes of black smoke clogging up the air. His feet move, but he doesn’t think about where he’s going. Then he blinks and his hands are already on Bitty’s doorknob, twisting it and wrenching the door open.

“Bittle!” Ransom snaps. His voice isn’t his own. It’s harsh, commanding, and totally, _totally_ fake to Ransom’s own ears. He just hopes he sounds captainly enough to fool Bitty into thinking he’s in control of his raging emotions right now.

Bitty jolts awake, sitting upright like something out of Bride of Frankenstein, one earbud still dangling out an ear. The white trail leads to his computer, where Ransom can see Skype pulled up and a sleeping image of Jack on the screen.

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, Ransom,” he yells angrily. “What the _hell_ is the matter with you?!”

“The Haus is on fire.”

A beat.

“Oh.”

Another beat.

“Oh shit, oh _shit_!” Bitty jumps out of bed, nearly dragging his laptop to the floor by his ear. He opens up his backpack and throws in his phone, wallet, a stuffed bunny and moves to grab his laptop. “Shit, shit, shit, _shit_.” 

On the other end of the line, Jack moves, but Ransom’s too far to see if he’s stirring or just sleepily adjusting. And in that moment, he’s angry, envious, jealous, any number of synonyms that Jack is peacefully dozing miles and miles away after being up all hours with his boyfriend while Ransom might just burn to death in a disgusting, repurposed frat house before he even graduates college or settles whatever spat is going on with Holster.

The laptop snaps shut and Bitty shoves it into the backpack. He looks at Ransom expectantly.

“Where are the tadpoles?”

“What?”

“The frogs, the tadpoles who–,” Bitty stops, mouth agape. “Dex and Nursey fell asleep on the couch downstairs!”

If people thought Bitty was fast on the ice, they hadn’t seen him move when he thought someone he cared about was in danger.  In his haste, he knocks his backpack off his bed and the hastily packed items slump out. Ransom bends to pick them up without thinking.

Bitty’s phone is unlocked, and while Ransom tries to be a good friend and ignore the quick buzzing in his palm, he can’t help but look. There are two new messages from someone named “Babyyy” and he can only _guess_ who that is.

He shoves everything back into the bag when he hears footsteps thump, thump, _thumping_ back towards him. Bitty’s bedhead appears in the doorway.

“We can’t get downstairs,” he cries. “How do we – _CHOWDER!”_

Holster, Chowder and Lardo brace themselves as Bitty launches himself at the latter. Ransom tries to say something about time, about needing to get out, when Lardo says: “Chow says Dex and Nurse already called 911.”

So Bitty says: “Oh my god they’re OK?”

To which Chowder responds, rather calmly, considering the situation: “You guys? There’s still a fire in the hallway so –,”

Whatever he was going to say is swallowed up by a deafening crunch-crack of a sound. Holster’s head snaps to the end of the hallway to the stairs.

“The fucking stairs just collapsed…,” he says.

Ransom realizes he’s sweating. He can’t imagine how Chow is feeling in his thick Sharks hoodie. Then the rather odd thought strikes him that this is probably like a normal temperature in California, something like a fresh spring day for Chowder, and Ransom almost laughs. He knows the five stages of grief, they touched on it in his mandatory gen ed psych course, and wonders of ironic humor falls somewhere in between anger and bargaining.

 “We can get out to the lawn through the Reading Room,” Lardo exclaims. The boys look at her, and then back at each other.

 “That’s at least a 12-foot drop though,” Bitty whimpers.

“We can tie my bedsheets together,” Chowder says, already turning away. “We can shimmy down. Like the rope in gym class. They do it on TV all the time!”

Ransom has no idea what he’s talking about, but throws Bitty his backpack as the group hurries down the hall. At this point, the flames have licked their way up to the ceiling and the five drop to the ground to crawl their way through the haze of smoke.

A harsh cough rips through Holster’s throat at the front of the pack. Ransom, bringing up the rear, winces. They’ve all stood like idiots for the past couple of minutes while the rooms had filled up with ash and pollutants, and by extension, their lungs too. Ransom knows the side effects. 

_Stupid, stupid, stupid_ –

“Quick, get into the room!” Holster yells, pushing them in with a strong sweep of his arm. He slams the door behind them. Again, Ransom wants to laugh at the absurdity of everything – as if slamming a door would keep fire at bay.

Chowder and Lardo methodically strip the bed and knot a number of blankets, scarves, and even tee-shirts together. Bitty, in a spur of inspiration and old-fashioned common sense, wedges a jersey under the gap in the door to keep more smoke from pouring in the room.

“Oh not that one!” Chowder laments. “Martin Jones is a damn national hero! Did you see him in Game Four against the Pens when –,”

“Chowder!” Bitty barks. “I’ll buy you another one when we’re not _dying_ of smoke inhalation.”

Holster’s in the corner of the room with a phone pressed to his ear. The blood rushing through Ransom’s own skull makes it hard to hear, but it sounds like he’s talking to Nursey. 

Ransom unpockets his own phone and calls 911. After a ring and a half, an operator picks up. He tells the woman on the other end of the line that there are five students, possibly more, stuck in a frat house off the corner of Jason and Elm streets. She tells him a man named William already called the fire in several minutes ago.

_Duh_ , he thinks to himself, wondering where the hell his brain is, _Lardo already said they called 911_.

Though she urges him to stay on the line, he hangs up when he catches Holster’s gaze from across the room. Holster shoves his phone in the pocket of his running shorts.

“There’s nothing secure enough to tie it to,” he says to Ransom, gesturing to the Macgyvered rope. “We have to hold it while the rest of them climb down.”

“But then what do we do when it’s just us?”

Holster’s frown deepens. “I’ll hold it while you get down.”

“Oh – _no_! You’re absolutely –,”

“Justin! We don’t have time to argue about this shit. Lardo, you climb down first since you’re the lightest, then Chowder, then Bits. Rans, you’re going after them and then my fat ass is going to jump out the window and pray to god I don’t break an ankle because it would really suck to end my collegiate hockey career over something as fucked up as this, you got it?”

It would have been an inspiring speech, had Holster not stopped half way through to gag on the smoke. Ransom purses his lips, not breaking their gaze. Then he nods.

Chowder throws open the window and tosses the end of the rope out. Holster helps Lardo climb through the window to the Reading Room.

“I’m ready,” she calls out.

Ransom and Holster grab fast to the blankets, the latter bracing a leg on the wall next to the window. The rope goes taut, and then slacks just as soon as it did. Holster calls out for Chowder to go next. Behind them, Bitty begins to choke on the air, deep chest rattling coughs that bend him in two.

When Chowder’s on the ground, rope going lax again, Ransom grabs Bitty by the shoulders. “Your turn, bro.”

“Ransom…”

“Bits, listen the faster you get down, the faster we get down, OK,” Holster says. He smiles like everything’s fine and they’re not in the middle of a room whose doorknob is bright red from heat of the flames outside its door.

Idly, Ransom wonders how the fire got started. It had to have been something with a drunken person and the stove. But it couldn’t have been Bitty. He’s more careful than that.

“You got this dude,” he says to Bitty as he helps him through the cracked window. Bitty shimmies out and whoops out two more monstrous coughs. Holster’s grip tightens on the rope as Bitty clings to the fabric and tries his best to rappel down the side of the Haus.

Ransom assumes Bitty’s near the bottom when Holster looks at him and says: “Your turn, babe.”

“Please – _please_ , don’t –,”

“Justin,” Holster looks solemn, as he places a lax piece of the rope in Ransom’s hand, “I need you to get out of here. You need to be safe.”

“Why can’t we _both_ just jump?”

“I’ll jump out right after you.”

“Stop it! Stop being so fucking stubborn we –,”

Holster claps a hand over Ransom’s mouth. Ransom fights the urge to lick it, but he knows that wouldn’t gross Holster out so it would be a moot point.

“Please don’t fight with me now,” he says. “Please. I’m so sorry for the shit show we’ve been putting each other through and how I’ve been acting but right now you need to get down there and you _need_ – and you –,”

Ransom pushes his hand off. “I need _you_ , you stupid idiot! I lo–,”

Neither of them would admit to it if pressed, but when the harsh sound of spraying water hits the siding of the Haus, both of them scream. On reflex, Holster throws his arms around Ransom and moves to shield him from the spray of broken glass and water that flies inwards.

A body appears in wreckage of the window, identity obscured by a mask and a mouthpiece. Ransom’s never been more thankful for the fire department in his life.

They outstretch one gloved hand.

“Give me your hand, we’ll get you out of here,” the person says. “Be careful, the floor beneath youse gonna turn this floor unstable any minute now.”

Holster pushes Ransom by the small of his back, but not before pressing a kiss to his cheek. Ransom turns to say something, but the powerful hands of the fireperson are pulling him out of the window and placing him in a cherry picker.

He watches as Holster tip-toes towards the window, looks at Ransom with a smile and

_–falls right through the floor_.

Ransom is frozen, the kind of comical stalling that only happens in movies or on television when an earthshattering event happens. But this is worse than that. The noise that rips out of his mouth is so primal, so animalistic. No words, just anguish. It rattles his lungs in his chest and makes his knees buckle under the force of so much unadulterated pain.

He thought tunnel vision in times of trauma was a joke. Something done for dramatic emphasis on television to make the viewers focus on a set point. But here’s the set point – right here, right now: Ransom’s being lifted away on a cherry picker and Holster is still inside the house. The fireperson on the roof scrambles inside and doesn’t come back out and Ransom’s still screaming.

The fireperson behind him grabs at his shoulder.

“Sir,” they say, “You need to relax or you’ll go into shock.”

“He just fell through the fucking floor!” Ransom screams.

He doesn’t know what to do with his body. There’s too much emotion: anger, sorrow, and pain – intense and hot and lethal pain seeping through his every nerve ending. What do you do when one half of your heart is ripped out of your body? How does it beat when your entire left ventricle and atrium are missing?

Diagnosis: you can’t. You’re dead too. It doesn’t take an undergrad with an almost finished biology degree and his sights set on Harvard’s medical program to tell you that.

Something blankets him, enclosing in on his arms. It wraps him tight. Too tight. Suffocating.

Ransom screams himself hoarse and drops to his knees. But the arms keep squeezing. Tighter – stronger.

“Get off me!” he chokes out. The tears rolling down his cheeks carve out little valleys in the dust left on his face. It feels like his throat is a backed up sewer system of unchecked, unnamed emotions. His head throbs, and were he more poetic, Ransom would say that it’s keeping time with his breaking heart.

 The fire person shushes him.

“You’re just stressed out,” they say, with a familiar voice. “Ransom, you need –,”

How do they know his name? How do they – his whole form shutters as he draws into himself. He places his forehead on the cool of the cherry picker floor. They’re descending now. He can feel it in the hum of the machine and the swooping sensation of falling too fast.

Hands grab at his shoulders again, trying to pull him up. He shrugs them off.

“Rans I’m just trying to help you.”

“Don’t say my name,” he mumbles. “Don’t say it. Don’t.”

The fireperson’s grip comes back stronger. Talon fingers dig into his shoulders and Ransom cries out hoarsely for them to stop. His eyes squeeze shut. He’s sure if Lardo could paint him now, he’d look like an abstract mystery, eyes so small and mouth so open.

“You have to wake up.”

He presses the palms of his hands into his ears.

“You have to open your eyes.”

He still hears them over the sound of his own blood rushing through his veins.

“You’re really scaring me, Justin,” they say. “Baby, wake up.”

Ransom gasps, eyes flying open. Instead of the hard steel of the cherry picker’s floor, it’s Holster’s concerned face and a hand on the side of his head. There’s a thumb brushing across his cheekbone, back forth, back, forth, and it’s so innocent and light that Ransom’s face crumples as he wordlessly starts to shake.

And Holster, god only knows how long he’s been there, stays in silence and pets at Ransom’s hair and thumbs away the tears as they roll down his cheeks. No dust. No smoke. Just him and Holster in a bed with dark blue, worn through sheets.

Time passes, like it always does, but Ransom can’t see the clock to note how long they’ve been laying there. A quiet pulsing settles between his temples. Holster, who has since move to lie next to him, is breathing shallowly, trapped between the realm of ‘not quite sleeping’ but ‘not quite awake.’

Ransom opens his mouth to say something, but Holster mumbles: “I thought you were having a seizure.”

He doesn’t know how to respond to that.

“You were like… convulsing. Some real Exorcist bullshit, man. But you were screaming. And it was so loud I thought you were hurt or even –,” a pause. A cleared throat. “You wouldn’t stop either. Just screaming and thrashing and I ran up the stairs so fast I literally fell up them. And Bitty couldn’t get you to stop. You just wouldn’t wake up. You scared everyone, man. You scared… me.”

The last word falls flat off Holster’s tongue. Ransom’s tongue feels like a stone. So instead of saying anything he wraps his arms tightly around Holster’s middle and presses his forehead above his boyfriend’s heart.  He closes his eyes. Tentatively, Holster slithers an arm under Ransom’s neck and brings it back around so he’s got one hand pressed to the back of his head and one hand on Ransom’s waist.

And they just lay there.

They breathe in one another’s air, back and forth, forth and back, until it’s just the two of them and nothing else in the world matters. Ransom doesn’t think he has the energy to fall asleep again after that dream but when he opens his eyes again the first rays of the morning sun have filtered in through the half shut venetian blinds and illuminate the mess of clothes and dirtied plates on the floor.

Ransom presses his nose into Holster’s pulse point on his neck and inhales. Half awake, Holster chuckles.  Under the blankets his legs stretch as far as they can go before he slings one around Ransom’s nearest calf.

They wake up to the sound of the lax house across the street mowing the lawn and cars spluttering down the street. Holster thumbs at the crease between Ransom’s eyebrows.

“What’s going on in that big brain of yours Oluransi?”

And before Ransom can think better of it, he just says: “I love you.”

It strikes him then, they’ve never said those words to each other and meant it romantically. Sometimes it slipped off the tongue in the heat of a game or after a wonderful favor done. Sometimes it came out when no one else was around and Ransom thought it really hard and wished his lips would move and say the same. Sometimes Holster dreamed about it, about an apartment in a city or saying it overlooking Niagara Falls in the summer.

Neither of them says any of this.

Instead Ransom mumbles it again, more forcefully, and Holster wraps himself tighter around him.

“I can’t breathe dude,” Ransom laughs as he pushes at Holster’s shoulder.

They break, and Holster pushes a kiss to Ransom’s forehead.

“Gross,” he says.

“Do you want to talk about…?”

Last night. Your meltdown. Everything prior to our blowout fight.  Any number of phrases, Ransom could have substituted for Holster’s unended sentence.

“I had a dream about you,” Ransom says instead. “You… died.”

“Oh.”

And before he can stop, Ransom is just talking. Words fall out of his mouth like he’s spitting them, throwing up every negative emotion he’s held bottled up inside for days, weeks.

“The Haus was on fire, and you were there. You woke me up. And we ran down stairs and got Bitty and Lardo and Chowder,” he breathes. “But then the stairs collapsed. And the roof was on fire – everything was – there was so much smoke. And we couldn’t jump down so we made a rope out of Chowder’s shit and shimmied down the Reading Room but you wouldn’t leave until you were the last one, you had to fucking be the captain, you had to fucking be – _you_.”

Ransom exhales short through his nose. “And then you died.”

“I’m not following.”

So he tells Holster about being the last two in the room, about making sure Ransom got out first – about falling through the floor. And as he says this, he realizes two things almost simultaneously.

One: he cannot imagine a world without Holster. He cannot imagine waking up in a single bed and getting ready for work without chirping Holster for taking hour-long showers. Can’t fathom making dinner for one and laying down to watch TV without being sat on and demanded to change the channel from “something only my grandmother and other people over 70 watch.”  Can’t think about having to go through the day and not share his experiences with someone.

Worst of all, he can’t conceive doing it with someone who’s not Holster.

Two: Justin Oluransi is utterly, irrevocably, stupidly in love with Adam Birkholtz. The same Adam Birkholtz who sings decently in the shower but the minute he knows you’re listening caterwauls and acts like a fool. The same man who thinks mild Pad Thai is spicy and has not a single rhythmic bone in his entire, six-foot-four-inch body. Who wore a groutfit to practice one day just because he could. Who marathons sitcoms on Netflix he’s seen multiple times, but still laughs at all the same jokes and mouths along to the theme song. Who acts like Velma when he doesn’t have his glasses, and forgets they’re sitting on top of his disproportionately huge head, having shoved them up there after rubbing at his eyes from studying too long.

Ransom knows these things. He knows them because just like Adam knows Justin, Justin knows Adam. There’s never been anyone else, just two boys growing up in a way that made them opposite sides of the same coin. Ransom – the sword; Holster – the shield. One utterly useless without the other.

He grabs Holster by the chin. Moves his face closer, because he knows with Holster’s glasses off, he’s effectively blind.

“Adam Birkholtz,” he says, voice soft but firm. “I am an idiot.”

Ransom presses his thumb to Holster’s lips before he can say anything, pinning his mouth shut.

“I’ve spent the last month getting mad at you for things that have just been… happening. And I thought that when we started dating, when we – I thought everything would be different from when we were just friends.” Ransom sighs. “But there’s literally nothing different. You’re my boyfriend. You’re my best friend. The two shouldn’t have to be mutually exclusive and you… I can’t get mad at you whenever I have a bad day. And I can’t just assume that whenever we have a disagreement, that’s it.”

Holster nuzzles their noses together in lieu of saying anything. His mouth, Ransom realizes, is still pinned shut.

“I’m going to work on not freaking out and closing myself off from you,” he finishes.

With a gentle tug, Holster pushes Ransom’s finger off his mouth.

“I’m sorry too,” he whispers. “I can’t just expect for you to know what I’m feeling. Like I know we joke we have this mental connection – and sometimes I really feel like we have that Vulcan mindmeld shit down tight! But we gotta talk. It’s a two way street.”

“Christ I feel like we just went through an episode of Dr. Phil,” Ransom laughs.

“Pinky promise we’ll talk to each other if we have issues in the future and not just be constipated fuckheads about… whatever it is we’re upset about?”

“Bro. Deal.”

They wrap pinkies around each other and Holster plants a firm kiss squarely on Ransom’s mouth. Lying there, intertwined, Ransom truly believes everything’s going to be okay. Then Holster breaks for air with a wide-eyed look.

“What is it?”

“Dude.”

“ _What_?”

“We are _so_ gay.”

For what it’s worth, Ransom cuffs him on the side of the head.

 

 

 

Several hours and many artfully hidden hickeys later, Ransom and Holster emerge from their shared bedroom. Ransom remembers what Holster says about last night and pauses at the top step.

Holster hears his hesitation.

“You coming?” he says.

“I don’t… What do I tell the guys?”

“About?”

“Last night,” At Holster’s blank look, Ransom continues, “The nightmare? The screaming?”

“Oh! That.” Holster shrugs. “I told Bitty to tell everyone else not to worry about it once we found out you were okay. Relatively speaking, of course. So I’m gonna guess he told everyone to mind their fucking business.”

“Bitty would never in a million years say fuck in front of the taddies.”

“Or the frogs.”

“Or the frogs,” Ransom concedes.

They make it down a few more steps before Ransom stops again.

“You really don’t think they’ll ask about it?”

Normally, Holster would tease Ransom for being so worried about what his teammates think of him. But considering last night, and the talk they had, he reaches up to Ransom on the step above him. Holster twines together their fingers.

“Cross my heart babe,” Holster says. “If anyone even makes you feel the slightest bit uncomfortable, I’ll knock their teeth out.”

“No you won’t. Those are our friends, you ass.”

“Shut up, you’re ruining my tough guy image, Rans.”

Fingers still interlaced, they make their way downstairs. Ransom has a smile on his face.

It’s going to be okay.


End file.
